My Home Page/Archives is getting hit hard

Your site is behind Cloud Fares DDoS protection system. If you are still experiencing issues then, I would contact them and see if they can give you anymore information on how they are getting though.

Hi, Justin. Yes, that is the first thing they did, activate Cloud Fare. They had me set it to medium, but I just noticed it’s been changed to “I’m Under Attack!”, which I suppose they did since they’re currently cleaning out malicious code on my site and must have noticed it continuing. However, the hits are still coming fast, so I’m hoping they’ll do something if Cloud Fare doesn’t stop it. \

That said, do you know what kind of attack this is? Is DDoS what it’s called?

The attacks are just all over the place. They are scripts running automatically to do anything that can really. Most act like DDoS due to the nature of the calls.

Is your site getting hit or is Cloud Fare catching it?

It looks like the hits have just about stopped, but I’m afraid to set Cloud Fare to anything less than attack mode because whomever did this was also able to remove my theme and header, so I don’t think it was just some bot attack. However, is there somewhere in Cloud Fare where I can see where the attacks came from? I’ve been on hold with Bluehost for over an hour *sigh*.

Speaking of Cloud Flare, my URL’s are all messed up (links to me from other sites don’t match up and show errors…photos broken etc). They said I need to let Cloud Flare propagate, but even Vault Press can’t continue to back up my blog due to the URL mess. ??

Even if you did find out where the attacks are coming from, it will change. Most attackers and botnets bounce from country to country.

If there is yet another penetration into your site, your site files themselves may have been compromised and you should update your install, themes and plugins. Rid anything that has been exploited and keep an eye out.

I took the liberty to run a exploit scan on your site and it seems to be a combination of both outdated, commercial theme/plugins and hosting company.

First big NO NO that I found was that you may have an outdated version of WP Super Cache and the scanner was loaded with messages about the vulnerability. Ensue you updated all plugins and theme. If you are your not staying updated (server and WP wise), coming here is obsolete.

You host has directory-listing enabled and within a minute I was able to scan your site and find you logo.psd and all uploaded files. An attacker sees, this and has a huge advantage attacking your site.

Your theme throws a 500 server error if I poke at it, this tells me the theme is not properly coded and combined with the directory listing, I can poke all day long and crash your site or even find a way to exploit and gain entry into your server.

Just as an example check out; https://www.parsleysagesweet.com/wp-content/uploads/

My suggestion would be to do the following:

– Contact your host and let them know your hosting is unexceptionable and either get them to fix the server config or move to another creditable host.

– Look at either contacting the theme developer (check your theme readme.txt as I found his email with a simple scan of your site), You need to update you theme but it looks like the author has not been around.

– Ultimately, you are going to want to hire someone to audit your files for security risks. If I was able to see them clear as day from the outside, I am sure there is a handful of exploitable files.

Part of security is to use updated software and hardware and never settle for outdated versions of anything.

Hope this helps

Hi, Justin, and thank you so much. I do update every plugin when the alerts come through, but yes, I need so much done. I wish I could find someone to do it for (for hire) because I’m technically challenged and would have no idea where to start and would probably mess everything up.

That said, I use Bluehost and paid to have sitelock with a firewall (the expensive one) placed on my site. However, the hits to my home page are still coming in hard and fast.

Can you recommend a service to help?

BY the way, my WP Super Cache is the latest version; 1.4.6.

You can head over to https://jobs.wordpress.net/ and post.

Thank you so much, Tim!